Share this Story

The crew over at Swedroid posted one of the first ever live videos of Android 4.2 running on the LG Nexus 4, this morning. In the video, we get to see the new Quick Settings menu that was hinted at a couple of weeks ago in a leaked 4.2 build. We were initially under the impression that a second swipe down from the notification menu would trigger this menu, however, you can see in the video that a tap on a new icon for the menu is all that is needed. It’s pretty slick.

In the actual menu, you can see brightness, data, WiFi, battery, Airplane mode, Bluetooth, and settings toggles/shortcuts. More importantly though, you can see a big button in the top left for the current user, which means multi-user support is coming to both phones and tablets in 4.2.

We can also see some of the new UI tweaks that Google has made in 4.2. First, the camera icon is all new and very pretty. Second, the stock Android clock is no longer a series of dots, and is instead a fully encompassed minimalist circle. Also, is that a 5th column of icons in the app drawer?

Hi, I am very thankful too you for this sharing..It is very useful for my writing project I get enough information for my writing..!!! foodmagazines

http://gplus.to/bdbplatano M. Puente

I think the settings notification shade is a modest try by Google but they could be better. They should be toggles, like in custom ROMs (tap to toggle, long press to access that setting) not just shortcuts to the settings.

master94

I remember I was reading the apple forums and someone made a joke saying watch Google add another row of icons just because Apple did, well looks like they were wrong, Google added another columns of icons instead. Android FTW

KreeTerry

So is the screen the same size as the gnex?

http://twitter.com/jamdev12 jamdev12

This is odd, bus hasn’t the quick toggle menus been available for other ROMs for a while now? I have TeamBAMF’s build and I have quick toggle menus. I guess Google takes hints from community of Android Devs and builds features into the base ROM. Good job Google.

johnc7995

Anyone notice the stock browser is removed?

Justin Swanson

I think it was removed from the Stock ROM on 4.1

MrWicket

been gone since Jelly Bean, Chrome is now the Stock Browser

joejoe5709

The phone is beautiful and LG did a good job of keeping with the understated Nexus style. I’m probably not going to upgrade though unless the specs are insane. Other than that, I cannot wait for 4.2! The quick settings don’t look any more useful than what you find in CM10 or AOKP, but I’m very very glad it’s finally available in stock form. For someone who keeps their phone stock and unrooted, this is huge. I’m really hoping for some much improved camera software. I can tell the GNex is capable of better photos and the controls could use some refinement. In response to some of the other comments, I much prefer the stock browser. Quick controls is where it’s at for me. If Chrome had a full screen mode with quick controls, I’d probably use it a lot more.

cloutist4

i don’t speak swedish, but what are those two symmetrical holes on the bottom? anyone care to enlighten me?

The dialer background also seems to have changed slightly. It has a blue-to-black gradient background in 4.1.2, but it’s an all-black background in 4.2.

Firelight

No POGO pin connector?

Lugnuts McGruff

So trivial little question here….

Anyone know if this is an LTE compatible phone yet? (GSM LTE aka AT&T/Telus/Bell/Rogers/etc.. NOT Verizon)

I’m assuming this will continue to be a pentaband phone which is great but LTE is basically a must have at this time.

Andy

looks so much snappier than my SIII. who else things the SIII lags here and there. when launching and changing screens. My Nexus was much smoother.

Ethan

Stop using stock Touchwiz. Nova or Apex launchers fix that issue.

HotRodJohnson

Hopefully it will allow customization. I find I have to toggle NFC a lot lately.

moozicmon

I’d say 4.2 looks promising. The phone itself? Meh.

PuzzleShot

Personally, I like the new style of quick settings versus that second pull-down from that earlier video. It’s cleaner, it’s less clumsy (it’s a tap versus a swipe and the button makes it more intuitive and easier to explain), and you can toggle back to notifications instead of having to swipe the shade up and back down again.

I also prefer it to persistent quick toggles because it’s just that much more space available for notifications viewing, but they’re still quickly available when I want them.

Sith77

Either this thing seems super fast and beautiful or my rezound is just horribly slow and old

http://twitter.com/belogical2 Be Logical

Performance still doesn’t look great on chrome with quad core and 2GB of RAM. what gives?

Charles Hobbs

What about this new mysterious 380 degree camera???

Dustin

Where is the headphone jack? It looks like it could be on the bottom or the top.

I want a 32GB version, this is a non-starter for me if it maxes out at 16GB.

http://gplus.to/bdbplatano M. Puente

And it’s private

http://www.droid-life.com Kellex B

Refresh.

http://gplus.to/bdbplatano M. Puente

Thanks!

MichaelFranz

Deja, Deja, Deja, Deja……oh wait wrong OS.

Like what they are doing with the quick controls. not really liking the minimalist clock, and the clock font on the lock screen. Maybe fonts are a new option as well and the clock widget may be base dont he font you use.

Inquizitor

I honestly always hated the clocks pre-ICS, and I think they’ve been getting better and cleaner with each new release. I hate how the GSIII still has such a crappy, disgusting clock font, makes no sense to me.

http://twitter.com/Czech_Boy Merek Ropet

I noticed an extra row in the apps window.

cheezer88

It’s that a user name in the top left?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=792000537 Joel Taylor

Yep – general consensus is that this phone will support multi-user access, though how it will be implemented and what it’ll actually mean isn’t clear atm

rehughe

When can I order and for how much?!?!?!?!

MeWantz

That I can’t buy it yet!!

wakefinance

we do get an extra row of icons!! in the app drawer

EC8CH

more like an extra column.

bcheeew

adam

5 columns of icons in the app drawer.

https://twitter.com/paladaxar Paladaxar

5 columns of icons! YES!

http://twitter.com/kirilv Kiril

That could easily backfire. There are a lot of 4 columns widgets that don’t scale well, or don’t scale at all.

Greg

5 columns are just in the app drawer.

http://twitter.com/TurboNegro7791 Tyler Hills

First off he said in the app drawer, secondly app drawer has always been 5 columns. It was an Apple joke dude

anezarati

the app drawer has always been 5 rows, not 5 columns

http://twitter.com/TurboNegro7791 Tyler Hills

my mistake. you’re right. rows not columns

TylerChappell

Pay attention better next time, it appears to only be in the app drawer.

https://plus.google.com/110773438514346746273/ tjhrulz

Well I guess they say be careful what you wish for…

@Droidexaminer

noticing 5 being the new number for set of rows in app drawer

TXLFC

looks like the app drawer is 5×5 now instead of 4×5

igotgame

They would have been better off just copying AOKP toggles honestly.

http://jordanhotmann.com/ Jordan Hotmann

Agreed…too many taps to change a setting in Google’s way. I prefer just to swipe down, hit a button, and continue what I was doing.

TheDrizzle

The awesome thing about Android is we get to choose how we want to do this! Gotta love it.

r0lct

For non-power users you need to separate notification from settings toggles IMO to make the UI clean. Hopefully 4.2 will bring voice commands for settings making it even easier.

HotRodJohnson

It’s actually in Google Now, but not enabled. I look forward to these too.

Jeff Broders

Agreed…widgetsoid works great for toggles in notification pull down

Travis Myers

Agreed, although I use CM10. It’s still nice to see this in stock though. It’s a lot better than IOS. I hate having to change settings on my iPad.

http://profiles.google.com/adamtruelove Adam Truelove

This is honest question, not trying to be a jerk. But why do you people need so many settings toggles? Why do you need toggles at all? Do you really turn on and off wifi, bluetooth, sync, GPS, adjust brightness enough to justify quick toggles? I haven’t changed a setting on my phone since I first got it. I never turn anything off and just leave brightness on auto.

I just don’t get it. It’s not 2009 anymore. Leave that stuff on, it’s not hurting anything.

igotgame

i turn wifi, screen rotation, LTE, torch, and sync On/Off all the time. So yea while you don’t do it…a lot of us do.

Canyons

Manually toggling these settings when not in use greatly increases battery life. That’s how I’m pulling 15 hours unplugged at the end of the day and still sitting at 50% battery on my Galaxy Nexus.

http://brgulker.wordpress.com/ brgulker

Derp.

lostsync

There are tons of reasons to do this…autobrightness has a different idea of what the appropriate level of brightness than you do, you’re in part of your house or yard with weak wifi but 4 bars of 4G, you want to turn on tethering, or are on your last 10% of battery and don’t need to waste it trying to stay connected to the 1 bar of 4G you get at your desk…plus in my rom, i get a flashlight there, toggling of wireless ADB, and so on…I’d hate to have to dive into Settings each time I wanted to change any of that.

Nathan Buth

Two words. Battery life. If you are a power user like the majority of the viewers of this site then it is easy to burn through a battery quickly. Being able to quickly turn on and off the gps, bluetooth, or wifi, sync can easily prolong your battery life. Same goes for changing the brightness. And it keeps you from having to use a widget to do so if you have it in the notification bar.

That’s surprising, I’ve had nothing but great luck with Chrome on my Gnex.

http://chrisbrownweb.com/ Qnowledge (Dominique)

I loathe Chrome. There’s just something about the stock browser.

http://brgulker.wordpress.com/ brgulker

I use the stock browser quite a bit. Seems to perform better. Gnex as well.

Chrome is great on my nexus 7.

John

Chrome is nice, but I still need my quick settings + flash support for now. I’m glad we can still side load old stock ICS browser.

MikeCiggy

Maybe we can expect an update to chrome with those features as well as the announcement that it will now be the stock browser. That would make some sense.

hfoster52

why don’t you side load flash?

John

I do, but Chrome doesn’t support flash even if it’s installed.

Prox

As much as I do like having flash. Didn’t Adobe say they will not provide any updates or fixes to any mobile Flash program?

TheWenger

I like the style of the stock browser better than Chrome. The dark colors look cooler IMO. But Chrome is too awesome for me to use the stock browser again.

LiterofCola

As far as build goes, it looks okay. Nothing to write home about.

About Droid Life

We consider ourselves to have the greatest Android community in the world, here at Droid Life. We talk general news, feature apps, review phones, and even teach you how to hack a little. But most importantly, there is no place on the internet that has the reader participation that we do and consider ourselves to be completely community driven. If you were looking for the best place to learn about Android and talk with like-minded folks about all things tech, then Droid Life is for you.